Rip Out the Wings of a Butterfly
by jsandoz
Summary: A post-ep for Butterflied that takes place before Living Doll. Warning: From the POV of a murderer, which may be disturbing to some people.
1. Patient Rage

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, except for my bicycle.**

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All of the people around me sit with eyes glued to the screen. They listen with rapt attention to every detail that the newswoman expertly doles out with tantalizing slowness. It has something to do with death. I listen more carefully. It is about the miniature killer, their latest freak star. "Authorities have released new information stating…" I tune out her babbling. Same shit, different day. I take a sip of my coffee. It has gone cold.

The newswoman finally signs off and a plastic-looking man with a fake smile starts droning about the weather. I listen without really listening as the volume in the coffee shop slowly increases, as if someone is turning up a dial. Snatches of conversation start to penetrate. They are discussing the serial killer. A frumpy-looking woman to my left is talking animatedly to her equally frumpy friend.

"How could someone _do_ things like that?" she gasps. Her tone of horrified fascination would be comical if it weren't so nauseating. "All those people…"

"He's got to be a psychopath Charlotte," her friend tells her. "Anyone who would even think of that kind of rampage can't be sane."

'Rampage.' That was one of the words used by the newswoman. And this female sitting next to me, this friend of Charlotte's, probably doesn't even realize that she is only regurgitating what she has heard, vomiting her idiotic ignorance onto the countertop for the entire world to observe.

"And they say he planned them," Charlotte gushes, "down to the last detail. And to think that he's just walking around, a madman out on the streets with you and me."

'Down to the last detail.' Another regurgitated phrase. I get up and throw away my nearly empty cup. 'Those stupid women,' I think savagely, 'have no idea what they are talking about.' A madman on the streets? Who cares? They aren't the ones you have to worry about. It's the ones in your home, in your everyday life, that pose real threats. It's the madmen in your brain… An encounter with an unhinged serial killer might do them both a world of good. At the very least, it would shut them up.

I step out of the shop and onto the sidewalk. A madman eh? Planned down to the last detail…walking the streets. I wonder what they would say about me if they knew. It would probably involve few words and many decibels. Or perhaps they wouldn't believe it at all. People can be oblivious that way when their comfortable misconceptions are threatened. Perhaps they wouldn't believe me until I slit their throats.

How could someone do that? Do you really want to know? Of course you do. You want to know every last and vicious detail. I shall tell you. 'Listen my children and you shall hear…'

It is quite easy. Not simple, not by any means, but it is oh so very easy once it is begun. It doesn't even require insanity. At least, not permanently.

My name is Dr. Lurie. If you knew my public face, you would trust me. You would put your life in my hands without a moment's hesitation over my character. You would feel safe, knowing that I am one of the best, most steady-handed and precise surgeons in the state of Nevada.

So you see, when the need arose, I had all of the skills required of me to do the job properly. But how could I?

How _could_ I?

All it took was rage. Rage caused by previously unimaginable pain. It is quite amazing how quickly loving someone can make you hate them. I did love her, I do. I loved her even as her life sprayed out over the bathroom from the wound my hand had made. I loved her as I killed him and packaged him away. I loved her as I scrubbed every inch of the bathroom and took him out with the trash, another plaything that once corrupted, had to be destroyed.

I killed them for her you know. I had to, in order to save her. She once told me that she never wanted to love another man as she loved me, and never would. I gave her that wish. Now, there will be no more wanting. Now, she never will.

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**AN: After I saw the episode Butterflied, I wondered 'What happened to Dr. Lurie? How did all of it affect him?' We see how it affects Grissom and some of how it affects Sara, but after playing out probably the most life-changing event of his life, Lurie just disappears.**


	2. The Devil is in the Details

**AN: Story title is the title of a song by H.I.M. I don't own that either.**

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I see her sometimes. It is always in the most mundane of places. In the supermarket. At the pump getting gas. I called out to her once. She showed no sign of recognition and I did not approach her.

She appears more reserved than she was before. Sex no longer oozes out of every pore of her skin, surrounding her like an intoxicating cloud. She no longer seems like the sort of woman who runs through men like wildfire and tosses them away like old laundry.

Outside of the coffee shop, I cross the street to a small park. The last time I saw her, it was here, two weeks ago. She was walking a large boxer, or rather, being walked by one. I only saw her from a distance. I stood out of sight and watched her and she seemed happy. I hope she is happy. I hope I have given her a happier life, even if it must be a new one that doesn't involve me.

I wander aimlessly over the grass. The hiss of headphones playing music turned up far too loud grows and fades, grows and fades as runners on the path pass me by. At least they are less obtrusive than the women in the coffee shop. I hear a deep, booming bark, so I look up, and there she is.

She is picking up a soggy tennis ball that the dog deposited at her feet. I watch the coil and spring of her body as she cocks her arm back and throws. In the time before, Debbie couldn't throw a ball to save her life, another thing that has changed. When the boxer chases after it, I wish I could run too. She calls him back to her. "Hank." His name is Hank. This time when she bends down to retrieve the ball, Hank takes advantage of her proximity and swipes a long tongue from her chin to her forehead. Her laugh carries to me on the wind. It is wrong. It could be anyone's, but it isn't hers.

There is something painful uncoiling in my chest and I have to remember to breathe. A man is walking across the grass perpendicularly to my original trajectory and I tear my eyes away from her to watch him, to distract myself. But he is heading right for her and Hank bounds up to him, tail wagging. By the posture of both humans, I know that they are familiar.

Something about the man stirs my memory and it seems important, almost vitally so. I can't tell what his face looks like at this distance. I can tell what he is going to do however, when he cups her face in his hands. Their lips touch and oh God, he is kissing her, and the thing in my chest explodes into all the old rage. He is kissing her. Debbie. My Debbie. And worse, always worse than him kissing her, is that she is kissing him.

Without thinking of what I am doing, I start walking toward them. They are oblivious to death, as those who are about to die often are, though I don't know how I will do it here, now, in the middle of a crowded park in late afternoon, with no weapon but my bare hands.

I am finally close enough to see his face.

And I remember.

His beard is gone, as is the haunted look that was the last I saw of his face, but it is the same man.

And she laughs again the same laugh as before that isn't the same as it should be because it is all wrong.

And I am finally close enough to really see her face for the first time in three years and I see that it isn't her face at all. So close, but the devil is in the details. If I were a painter, I could paint every perfect detail of her face in my sleep. It would not be this face.

And suddenly, I understand.

And it all comes crashing down.


	3. Glassy Idols

"You risked everything."

"I couldn't do it."

At the time, he had thought that the man was just referring to parallel circumstances. "Someone young and beautiful comes along…" But no, the joke ran deeper than that. And the crushing irony, the last twist of the knife, is right here before me. "I couldn't do it," he said. But he has. This is her. It has to be. No other feasible possibility exists.

"I'm still here," I told him.

"Are you," he asked, and I thought that he sounded pathetic, as if he were the one who had killed someone and was disappearing.

I am still here and he is still there, but "there" is now a mockery of what I no longer have, what I never had, because the woman who is not Debbie is _not_ Debbie. And what makes her laughter the wrong laughter is what makes it right. The sincerity that I never heard. The depth of something not faked. I am still here and I am still disappearing.

I walk by them without turning my head. His eyes slide by me without recognition. It isn't surprising. Three years ago, I doubt that _I_ would have recognized me as I am now. My hair is pure white and a full beard obscures the bottom half of my face. What is visible is heavily lined. I am much thinner. Debbie would say that I walk like an old man, but then, she would have said that three years ago, true or not.

As I make my way home, I recall the stab of triumph that I felt when the other man—what was his name—Jim Brass—said that he had "just a theory" and I realized that they had nothing. I suddenly understood that I had gotten away with murder, and it had been so easy. Very complicated, yes. Lots of tiny steps had to be performed in exactly the right order, but not a single one had posed any real difficulty.

But living, being "still here," well, as one might say, there's the rub. It is very simple. One only has to continue as they were. It is as simple as walking up a wall. One must put one foot in front of the other until the reach the ceiling. It is equally impossible.

Once inside, I remove the scalpel from its drawer and turn it over in my hands. It is just as sharp as it was three years ago. I raise it to my neck, just the same place. I wonder if Gil Grissom will process this scene. I wonder if he will remember me. Of course he will. I wonder who the woman was, what her name was. I wonder if he will tell her about me when she asks him 'how was work?' I doubt it. He probably never told her and never will. He is afraid of me, or was, because he was afraid of himself.

I wonder if I will fall to my knees. But it would not be in front of butterflies, but in front of her. We gave the goddess the idols she worshiped and worshiped them ourselves by worshiping her. She never bought them herself, but only received them. A god that you can buy yourself loses its wonder, but a god that is given, even by a lesser being, can still be greater than oneself. I wonder why she did not lose her wonder if we were buying her, paying her with little winged gods.

I wonder if she is happy. I hope so. I hope that she has a happy life now.

Debbie.

I wonder if you love me. I love you so much and I saved you. I had to save you. I wonder and I press down and Debbie, I…I…only wanted…


End file.
